Kurtenbach

The offensive line upped its game in a big way. Aaron Donald, somehow, someway was neutralized by right guard Dan Brunskill and center Ben Garland, Garoppolo was hurried only three times in the game and was not sacked once, and the line also helped Raheem Mostert and JaMychal Hasty run the ball with aplomb, keeping the Niners in manageable third downs all night. The big guys deserve credit for the Niners’ good offensive play.

Mostert and Hasty deserve a good deal of credit, too. Both made running the ball look easy on Sunday night — much easier than Tevin Coleman or Jerrick McKinnon have made it look this year.

The wide receivers deserve credit. Yes, there were two or three tough drops in the game, but their collective impact in the run game as well as in the passing game was outstanding.

But the person who really deserves credit is Kyle Shanahan. He called a masterful game — a kitchensink game, as I wrote after the contest — spreading out the Rams defense with a sideline-to-sideline run game, and scheming receivers open by attacking LA’s aggressiveness on the pass rush, questionable linebacker play, and the weak spot at free safety.

The Niners’ offensive game plan was effectively the same as what we saw in the NFC playoffs last year: Protect (or hide, depending on your viewpoint) Garoppolo,

and run the ball down the throats of your opponents.

Garoppolo’s box score lied. Four of his “passes” were merely forward handoffs. Five more were screen throws. (Given the fact that he could not execute all of them, I suppose some credit must be granted for those he did execute.) On top of those nine passes behind the line of scrimmage, he attempted 12 passes that traveled between zero and 5yards.

In all, Garoppolo only attempted 10 passes that traveled more than 5 yards downfield in the air Sunday. Only two passes could be classified as “tight-window” throws. Neither went well.

Shanahanhadagame plan for Garoppolo where he threw the ball fast (average time to throw Sunday night: 2.4 seconds) to receivers that were close to him or wide open. Of Garoppolo’s 268 passing yards, 226 of them were runs after the catch.

Now, Garoppolo executed. Credit to him there, but, man, his is good work if you can get it.

Frankly, I don’t think that game plan will work all that often moving forward, and the Niners’ goal from this point on is straightforward: Win more games than you lose and you’re in the playoffs.

Teams will watch Sunday’s tape, see that Shanahan is protecting his quarterback, and dare Garoppolo to throw it to the sidelines and deep down the field.

How can you be confident that he’ll be able to do that? His coach showed Sunday that his confidence in Garoppolo is at the bare

minimum level necessary to play him. Remember, on a late third-and-7, where a completion past the firstdown marker would seal the game, the Niners opted to run a shovel-pass run to Deebo Samuel. The wide receiver drove forward to pick up the first down and end the game — Garoppolo picked up the passing yards, too — but it told you everything you need to know about Shanahan and his signal caller.

Garoppolo is more a liability than an asset to the Niners right now, even after a win.

The defense is back!

The 49ers defense played extremely well on Sunday. There’s no arguing that.

But this unit is nowhere near the one that we saw last year.

Last year’s defense was predicated on an elite pass rush. The Niners certainly don’t have that this year. On Sunday, they pressured Goff on roughly 25 percent of his dropbacks, but they only registered two quarterback hurries and had no sacks or even near-sacks. What the Niners did have was super-sticky coverage in the secondary and elite linebacker play.

Those two things need to be the backbone of the new Niners defense — a unit thathasachancetobereally good for the remainder of the season.

It just won’t be great like last year’s defense, which was excellent at all three levels and elite up front.

Maybe Sunday’s performance was a one-off, but there’s something almost Patriots-like about this current Niners defense. No flash, just substance. This

is unquestionably a good thing, but the structure of the unit will require defensive coordinator Robert Saleh to improve his creativity on a week-by-week basis. The Patriots defenses under Bill Belichick are built around strong secondaries and versatility down the middle — they have no “base” look, as every week they have a new, bespoke system built specifically to stop the opposing team.

Given the fact that they’re a Shanahan-led team, it should be unsurprising that the Niners have been a system defense. They mixed it up a bit last year, don’t get me wrong, but the Niners want to play a four-man, singlegap, wide-nine front with cover-3 behind it.

Pragmatism needs to step in for the rest of the season, though. We saw a bit Sunday with the Niners’ linebackers spending a lot of time in the A-gap, but that’s not enough. Given the team’s personnel, a threeman front might be in the cards next week. Threesafety looks could become the norm. A “star” position, like we saw the Rams run with Jalen Ramsey might be a viable option against certain teams.

Saleh is going to have to show his quality as a coordinator from this point on while Niners players are going to need to become comfortable with flexibility.

So no, the Niners’ defense — at least the elite unit we knew last year — is not back.

But a new one might have emerged last night. It’s not on the same level, but with the right coaching, it could prove plenty valuable in weeks to come.